One
of the greatest materialists that ever lived, and than whom no one adduced
stronger arguments in defence of his theory - was Epicurus. The great, the
virtuous, the noble and chaste Epicurus, who called the higher ends and divine laws mere inventions of the human
mind, and rejected the idea of the human Soul as being immortal. Who of our
modern positivists has ever said of the origin of our being, anything stronger
than this:

“The soul……. must be material, because we
trace it issuing from a material source; because it exists, and exists alone,
in a material system; is nourished by material food; grows with the growth of
the body; becomes matured with its maturity; declines with its decay; and
hence, whether belonging to man or brute must die with its death.” [1]

And yet, he was a Deist and a Theosophist;
for apart from a system entirely his own, the profound philosophy of which is
evinced in the cohesive power of his school never equalled by any other ancient
school of philosophy - he devoted his whole life to the study of natural
sciences and the analysis of divine action in its relations to nature. His
conclusion was that the Universe which is infinite could not be the product of
divine action, since the existence of evil cannot be accounted for.
Notwithstanding this, and though disbelieving in a God as an intelligent
Principle, he admitted the existence of both a Supreme Being and gods or
Spirits, living and immortal beings, of human shape but colossal proportions.

On the other hand, Spinoza was a
recognized “systematic Atheist” as Bayle brands him [2]; against whom was pronounced the terrific Anathema Maranatha, and whose system of negation Malebranche terms
a chimera both ridiculous and terrible. And yet, no more refined, spiritual
nature than Spinoza’s ever breathed upon earth. If by Epicurus abstract ideas
were continually transformed into the gross concrete forms of a material
Universe; by Spinoza the material conceptions of Science, from the Solar system
down to the molecular structure of a leaflet, were mellowed down to the most
Raphaelic hues, and the grossest substances assumed the shadowy, ethereal
outlines of an ideal world. So much did this martyr of transcendent Theosophy
impress himself upon the subsequent generations of thinkers that Schleiermacher
speaking of “the holy but proscribed Spinoza” reaches the most touching pathos.
“The Divine Spirit transfuses him”, he says. “The infinite was his beginning
and end, the universe was his only and everlasting love. In holy innocence and
deep humility he mirrored himself in the eternal world, and saw also how he was
its noblest mirror. Full of religion was
he, and full of a holy spirit, and therefore he stands alone and
unrivalled, master of his art, but exalted above profane Society, without
disciples and without even citizenship!” [3]

The conceptions of this “atheistical”
Theosophist, about God are among the most original. Iron-bound as they are by
the law of necessity reigning everywhere in physical nature, we find him
solving the most abstract ideas by rigidly geometrical definitions. His is a
system of metaphysical ideas from which evolve a series of theorems - a
demonstration from the eight definitions and seven axioms of the first book of
the Ethica. [4]

One acquainted with the Hindu philosophy
would be singularly reminded of both the Vedanta and that extreme Buddhist
system known as the school of the Svâbhâvikas. According to his ideas God is “a
Substance consisting of infinite attributes each of which expresses an absolutely infinite and eternal essence.”
It follows that this Substance - necessary and infinite, one and indivisible,
is God, the only Self-existence, All-Perfection and absolute Infinitude. Take
away the name of the Deity, and you have here the abstract ideas about the only
creative Power of the World, of the Svâbhâvikas. “Nothing exists in the
Universe but Substance - or Nature”, say the latter. “This Substance exists by,
and through itself (Svabhavat) having never been either created or had a
Creator.” “No” - echoes unconsciously Spinoza, “nothing exists in this world
but Substance, and the modes of its attributes; and, as Substance cannot
produce Substance there is no such thing as Creation.” This is the claim of
most of the Hindu philosophies. And again ……. It (creation) - says Spinoza, has
no beginning and no end, but all things have to proceed or emanate from the
Infinite One and will so proceed eternally. According to his philosophy, only
two out of the innumerable infinite attributes of the Deity are known to us -
extension and thought, the objective and the subjective of which He (the
Infinite) is the identity. God is the only free Cause (causa libera), all other beings having neither free will nor
contingency are moved by fixed laws of causation. The Deity is “Thecausa
immanens omnium, not existing apart from the Universe, but manifested and
expressed in it, as in a living garment.” In the Zohar the creation or universe is also called “the garment of God”
woven from its own Substance.

’Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply

And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by,

says Goethe, another German Theosophist in
his Faust. And, in Vedanta, we find
Brahma the Absolute God, unconscious
of the Universe, and remaining ever independent of all direct relation to it.
Says Pandit Pramadâ Dâsa Mittra of Benares - in his Vedântic Conception of Brahma: “While the Vedântin denies this
mundane transitory consciousness to the Deity he declares …….. emphatically …….
that He is Consciousness Absolute ……. He and His Consciousness are not distinct
……. It is this permanent Self partially manifested [in man,] but prevailing all
conscious beings that is the Omnipresent Spirit ……. The Vedântin believes that
it (the world) was nothing and is nothing apart from the One absolute
Being - God.” [5] It is only when
the Jewish philosopher speaks of the “attributes” of God - however infinite,
that he differs from the Vedanta; for the latter allows man alone to call his consciousness an attribute of his
soul “because it varies, whilst the consciousness (chaitanya) of God is one and
unchangeable, hence no such distinction of substance and attribute holds with
Him.” As to Spinoza’s Deity - natura
naturans - conceived in his attributes simply and alone; and the same Deity
- as natura naturata or as conceived
in the endless series of modifications or correlations, the direct outflowing
results from the properties of these attributes, it is the Vedantic Deity pure
and simple. The same subtle metaphysical distinction is found in the mystery by
which the impersonal Brahma - One and Indivisible, the Absolute “consciousness” - unconscious
of the Universe, becomes through sheer metaphysical necessity Ishvara, the
personal God, and brings himself into direct relation to the Universe - of
which it is the Creator - respectively under the definitions of Maya
(illusion), Shakti (power) and Prakriti (nature).

So pre-eminent is the Vedantic
Brahmâ-Ishvara in Spinoza’s philosophy that we find this idea strongly
colouring the subsequent views of Hegel, one of the philosophers who was the
most influenced by the Jewish idealist. In the Hegelian scheme the Absolute asserts its rights to the
fullest extent. Hegel declares that he would rather deny the existence of the
material universe than to identify God with it. Fichte whose transcendental
idealism was originally intended to amplify that of Kant, and served as a basis
for Schelling’s Nature-philosophy had gone still further than Hegel in that
direction. Unable to free human will from subjection to the iron laws ruling
despotically all over physical nature, he denied the reality of both nature and
law and denounced them as the product of his own mind - (maya?). Hence he
denied God, for in his philosophy the Deity is not an individual being but
merely a manifestation of Supreme laws, the necessary and logical order of
things, the ordo ordinans of the
Universe. If we take in consideration that by a peculiar modification of
language, that which the ancients called “Substance”, modern philosophy terms
as the Absolute, or the Ego, we will find still more striking
similarities between the pantheistical mysticism of the ancients and the
extreme transcendentalism of today, whether in physical or spiritual sciences.

To sum up, then, whether with Robert Boyle
one considers the Universe in the light of a gigantic clock-work and strives to
fathom the mystery of that Self-existing Key, which winds it up so periodically
and mechanically. Or, belonging to the class of those thinkers, whom the Duke
of Argyll accused in his Reign of Law[6] of constantly speaking of “mere
ticketing and orderly assortment of external facts”, and is a Positivist. Or
again maintains with Dr. Tyndall that “the order and energy of the Universe is
inherent and not imposed from without, - the expression of fixed law and not of
arbitrary will”, and is regarded as a materialist. Or yet, without being
necessarily a Sectarian bigot, he reflects the early teachings of his childhood
and regards God as a tangible, gigantic operative and intelligent Being, with
personal attributes, who descends periodically into various Avataras, becomes a
“divine male” like Viraj and others, and rejects a deity incomprehensible and
incomprehensive - an invisible mist. Or following in the footsteps of the
ancient Yogis, starts out in search of the Boundless and the Unconditioned One,
and hopes of meeting face to face the Absolute and Subjective, or believes in
Alchemy and expects to rival Raymond Lully in the art of making gold and
finding the philosopher’s stone; or finally, like Iamblichus, or a modern Spiritualist,
experiments in Theurgy and Spiritualism, and calls out forth superior and
inferior spirits from the supermundane spheres …….

(The
manuscript is interrupted at this point.)

NOTES:

[1] Note
by B. Zirkoff: “This is probably H.P.B.’s own translation from the Greek. A
summary of the thought of Epicurus on the Soul is translated in the Loeb Classical Library edition of
Diogenes Laertius’, Lives of Eminent
Philosophers, Vol. II, Book X, § 63-68.”